If Thy Eye Offend Thee...
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"If Thy Eye Offend Thee..." by Keith Hewitt
"Making a Choice" by Frank Ramirez
If Thy Eye Offend Thee...
by Keith Hewitt
Matthew 5:21-37
The streets of Bone Port were mostly dark, illuminated in patches by the pale yellow light of kerosene lamps shining through the windows of the houses and businesses that lined them. Down near the harbor that gave the town its name, a steamship whistled to announce it was sliding into port, a sound that was reflected by the buildings of Bone Port until it died away, like an old memory that had finally faded to nothingness.
Reverend Jamison Lee turned up his collar against the breeze, which had now shifted so it was coming off Lake Michigan, and hurried down the street to the last house on the block -- a small house that had the rectangular façade of a former store, now turned into a residence. What had been large windows had been replaced by clapboard, leaving only one small window on each side of the door; one window was lit, the other was not.
He shifted his bag from left to right hand, and knocked on the door. There was no immediate response, and after a minute or so he knocked again, thinking, Maybe he’s changed his mind.
No such luck. “Who is it?” a voice called out cautiously.
Jamison sighed. “Reverend Lee, Paul.”
“Right. Come on in.”
The hallway beyond the door was unlit, and the sitting area to the right had only the one lamp, turned down low; by its dim light, he could see there was no one there. He walked down the darkened hallway to the room at the end, to find Paul Schinkel sitting at the kitchen table.
He was in one of the two chairs at the table, and sitting up unnaturally straight. From the faint odor, Jamison could surmise that the man had already been drinking; from his demeanor, it had been a long-term project. Jamison said nothing about it, set his bag on the table with a thud. “So, are you ready, Paul? Do you still want me to do this?”
Schinkel nodded -- a slow motion, as though he was afraid his head might flop too far forward, and pull his body with it. “I am, Rev’rend. I saw her again, just a couple hours ago, and the same old feelings came over me.” His eyes, slightly droopy, turned from the Reverend and seemed to be seeing another image, now. “She was standing there, with her blond hair and her calico dress, all buttoned right up to her chin, but I couldn’t help thinking about unbuttoning those buttons...right there in the classroom...”
Jamison held up a hand. “I get the picture. You’ve told me before.”
Schinkel looked at him, then. “I know it ain’t right, Rev’rend, but it just comes over me when I see her. And when you said that thing about ‘if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out,’ I knew what I had to do. That’s why I came to you.”
“Right. And I appreciate that you did -- it’s good to know that someone in church is paying attention to what I read. And I can help you -- I saw this done a few times back in the war.” He opened the bag, rummaged around, and pulled out a large melon baller. He held it up close to Schinkel’s eye and pressed the handle, flicking the blade inside a couple of times. “Nope -- too big.” Schinkel blanched, and Jamison put it back in his bag, pulled out a smaller one and did the same thing. “Yep -- perfect,” he said, almost to himself.
“You know, feeling like this never used to bother me -- I figured it was natural, and all, and then you started preaching, and I realized what you were saying,” Schinkel said nervously. “So I guess if I want to stay on God’s good side, this is what I need to do. I tried to get Doc Hammond to do it, but he just told me I was crazy, and threatened to put me in the asylum.”
Jamison said nothing, but took out two rolls of clean white cloth, a patch, and a towel. Finally, he took out a small bottle of whiskey. Despite everything, Schinkel’s eyebrows arched when he saw it, and Jamison smiled. “Purely medicinal.” As if to make the point, he went to the dry sink and opened the bottle, poured about half of it over the business end of the melon baller.
“I guess we should get this over with, if you’re sure this is what you want to do,” he said, almost cheerfully.
Schinkel looked at him, nodded stoically.
“Tilt your head back a bit, so I can see a little better,” Jamison said, standing next to him. Schinkel complied, and Jamison used the fingers of his right hand to pry open the eyelids of Schinkel’s right eye, holding them wide open so the spherical nature of his eye was apparent. As Jamison brought the melon baller closer, and closer...now almost touching his eyeball, he suddenly said, “Look, Paul, could you do me one favor? Could you close your eyes for a second?”
Schinkel looked at him. “I could if you let go of my eyelids.”
Jamison looked puzzled for a moment, then surprised. “Oh, right.” He straightened up, releasing Schinkel’s eyelids. “Close your eyes, will you?” Schinkel closed his eyes, but the eyeballs twitched nervously under the lids, as though expecting a surprise attack. “Do me a favor. If you think about it, can you picture Miss Cunningham? I mean, can you really see her in your mind’s eye, how she looks? Details about her face, her clothes?”
Puzzled, Schinkel nodded. “Sure. I can see her just fine, actually -- I can can see her face, but mostly I just imagine -- “
“No, that’s enough. That’s what I was wondering. OK, back to work.” Once again, he grasped Schinkel’s eyelids, held them wide while he brought the melon baller close -- this time actually touching the outer edge of the eye socket with the edge of the utensil before he straightened up again, and lowered it. “You know, I can do this -- I can take your eye, just like it said in Matthew. Heck, I can even take both eyes, if you want me to -- “
Schinkel looked alarmed, started to squirm.
“ -- but I don’t think that’s going to help. Because even after you can’t physically see her anymore, you’re still going to be able to see her in your mind’s eye -- up there,” he said, touching Schinkel’s head; the man flinched at the touch. “And it’s not like I can very well go rooting around there with a melon baller, so you’re going to have the same feelings.”
“So what are you telling me?”
“I’ll do this if you want me to, Paul -- but I think the problem’s not with your eye, it’s with your heart. If you’re going to look at women with lust -- if you’re going to fixate on that feeling, then that’s a heart problem. Sure, you might see someone, a thought might flash through your mind, that’s natural. But focusing on those feelings is the real problem. Because they take you away from thinking about her as a person -- you just think about her for what she could do for your own ends, at that moment. It gets you lost in the ways of this world, Paul -- gratifying yourself, without thinking of others. That’s not what Jesus would want.”
“But it says -- “
“I think Jesus was making a point. It’s hard to make the same point, saying, ‘if your thoughts offend you, pluck them out.’ But it’s what he meant, I’m pretty sure. He knows we’re not angels, Paul -- we’re human beings, and human beings have feelings, and urges, and all those things. What he was saying is that we need to change who we are -- to rise above them -- if we’re going to be a part of God’s Kingdom. To stop putting ourselves first, but put others before us -- and to remember that they’re human beings, just like us.” He lay down the melon baller, put his hand on Schinkel’s shoulder. “We’re all God’s children, Paul. We all deserve respect.”
Schinkel’s face was a curious blend of relief and disappointment -- or, at least, the feeling of being let down after leading up to a big moment. “So -- you don’t think I should do this?”
“I think God prefers his children to go through life intact, if they can. If you want to talk more about how to change your heart -- how to let open yourself up to the grace of God, so he can change your heart -- I’ll be glad to do that.”
Schinkel nodded. “OK...I think that would be good. But, Rev’rend -- since you’re not going to use it, could you put that thing away?” He pointed to the melon baller, lying on the table. “It makes me a little nervous.”
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
Making a Choice
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 119:1-8
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15).
Nobody knows how many millions were killed in the First World War, but a whole generation of young men were lost in Germany, France, and England. Unlike, however, the Second World War that followed later in the twentieth century, in which mighty forces representing opposing world views clashed, the earlier war seems to have been one into which the western world tripped into, to no good purpose.
Nevertheless, at the time the war was interpreted as being a Great Cause. Many who would not have had to serve hastened to join. Others struggled mightily within their souls over the decision to join or stay aloof from the fighting.
Oddly enough, a poem written to a friend to demonstrate that sometimes we agonize over choices more than we need to, galvanized that soul to make the choice to enlist, and then to die a few weeks after heading to the Front.
The American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) was the author of the poem, and his friend, Englishman Edward Thomas (1878-1917), was the recipient. The two met in London the year before the war began. Almost immediately the two became close companions. At that point neither had achieved fame as a writer.
Frost had only published a few poems in America, and had made a sudden decision to travel with his family across the ocean in an attempt to jump-start his writing career. With the help of his friend Thomas he published a small book of poetry that attracted little attention at the time, but convinced Thomas that his friend was a genius.
Thomas, meanwhile, though much published (having written twenty books in prose, along with over two thousand reviews), thought of himself as a literary hack. He was frustrated and depressed about his career and his life, making his family miserable in the process. At that point Thomas had not written a single poem.
When war broke out his anxiety became even worse. Even though his age meant he need not enlist in the military, he vacillated between a desire to join and a desire to stay at home. Because of the danger of invasion Frost returned to the United States, taking with him one of Edward Thomas' children for safekeeping.
Thomas, meanwhile, because of his inner turmoil, suddenly began to churn out a great deal of poetry, some of which would be published posthumously. It was work that would in time make him quite famous indeed.
In the meantime, understanding that his friend was having great difficulty deciding what he ought to do, Frost sent to him a poem that is now very famous. The year was 1915. The war, originally believed on both sides would be a short one, was turning into a long, drawn-out bloody conflict. The poem was originally titled "Two Roads." It is now known as "The Road Not Taken."
The poem, memorized by generations of school children, begins:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
Frost knew his friend was uncertain what to do in the face of the Great War, and in his mind he thought the poem gently mocked indecision, suggesting that Edwards might be overthinking things, and that the choice might not be as momentous as his friend thought. But, like many who later understood the poem to suggest that if we made the wrong choice we would regret it in later years, the final stanza caused Edward Thomas to believe he had no choice but to enlist in what was turning into a very bloody conflict.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Thomas took the poem seriously and personally. He enlisted almost immediately after receiving the poem. After training, and rising to a rank of second lieutenant, Edwards was sent to the front in 1917. He died scant weeks afterwards.
In his closing words to the people on the verge of crossing over to the Promised Land, Moses tells the people they too are facing a choice -- but he makes certain they understand in no uncertain terms that theirs is not a choice about which hiking trail to take. It is a choice that matters: See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15).
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 12, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"If Thy Eye Offend Thee..." by Keith Hewitt
"Making a Choice" by Frank Ramirez
If Thy Eye Offend Thee...
by Keith Hewitt
Matthew 5:21-37
The streets of Bone Port were mostly dark, illuminated in patches by the pale yellow light of kerosene lamps shining through the windows of the houses and businesses that lined them. Down near the harbor that gave the town its name, a steamship whistled to announce it was sliding into port, a sound that was reflected by the buildings of Bone Port until it died away, like an old memory that had finally faded to nothingness.
Reverend Jamison Lee turned up his collar against the breeze, which had now shifted so it was coming off Lake Michigan, and hurried down the street to the last house on the block -- a small house that had the rectangular façade of a former store, now turned into a residence. What had been large windows had been replaced by clapboard, leaving only one small window on each side of the door; one window was lit, the other was not.
He shifted his bag from left to right hand, and knocked on the door. There was no immediate response, and after a minute or so he knocked again, thinking, Maybe he’s changed his mind.
No such luck. “Who is it?” a voice called out cautiously.
Jamison sighed. “Reverend Lee, Paul.”
“Right. Come on in.”
The hallway beyond the door was unlit, and the sitting area to the right had only the one lamp, turned down low; by its dim light, he could see there was no one there. He walked down the darkened hallway to the room at the end, to find Paul Schinkel sitting at the kitchen table.
He was in one of the two chairs at the table, and sitting up unnaturally straight. From the faint odor, Jamison could surmise that the man had already been drinking; from his demeanor, it had been a long-term project. Jamison said nothing about it, set his bag on the table with a thud. “So, are you ready, Paul? Do you still want me to do this?”
Schinkel nodded -- a slow motion, as though he was afraid his head might flop too far forward, and pull his body with it. “I am, Rev’rend. I saw her again, just a couple hours ago, and the same old feelings came over me.” His eyes, slightly droopy, turned from the Reverend and seemed to be seeing another image, now. “She was standing there, with her blond hair and her calico dress, all buttoned right up to her chin, but I couldn’t help thinking about unbuttoning those buttons...right there in the classroom...”
Jamison held up a hand. “I get the picture. You’ve told me before.”
Schinkel looked at him, then. “I know it ain’t right, Rev’rend, but it just comes over me when I see her. And when you said that thing about ‘if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out,’ I knew what I had to do. That’s why I came to you.”
“Right. And I appreciate that you did -- it’s good to know that someone in church is paying attention to what I read. And I can help you -- I saw this done a few times back in the war.” He opened the bag, rummaged around, and pulled out a large melon baller. He held it up close to Schinkel’s eye and pressed the handle, flicking the blade inside a couple of times. “Nope -- too big.” Schinkel blanched, and Jamison put it back in his bag, pulled out a smaller one and did the same thing. “Yep -- perfect,” he said, almost to himself.
“You know, feeling like this never used to bother me -- I figured it was natural, and all, and then you started preaching, and I realized what you were saying,” Schinkel said nervously. “So I guess if I want to stay on God’s good side, this is what I need to do. I tried to get Doc Hammond to do it, but he just told me I was crazy, and threatened to put me in the asylum.”
Jamison said nothing, but took out two rolls of clean white cloth, a patch, and a towel. Finally, he took out a small bottle of whiskey. Despite everything, Schinkel’s eyebrows arched when he saw it, and Jamison smiled. “Purely medicinal.” As if to make the point, he went to the dry sink and opened the bottle, poured about half of it over the business end of the melon baller.
“I guess we should get this over with, if you’re sure this is what you want to do,” he said, almost cheerfully.
Schinkel looked at him, nodded stoically.
“Tilt your head back a bit, so I can see a little better,” Jamison said, standing next to him. Schinkel complied, and Jamison used the fingers of his right hand to pry open the eyelids of Schinkel’s right eye, holding them wide open so the spherical nature of his eye was apparent. As Jamison brought the melon baller closer, and closer...now almost touching his eyeball, he suddenly said, “Look, Paul, could you do me one favor? Could you close your eyes for a second?”
Schinkel looked at him. “I could if you let go of my eyelids.”
Jamison looked puzzled for a moment, then surprised. “Oh, right.” He straightened up, releasing Schinkel’s eyelids. “Close your eyes, will you?” Schinkel closed his eyes, but the eyeballs twitched nervously under the lids, as though expecting a surprise attack. “Do me a favor. If you think about it, can you picture Miss Cunningham? I mean, can you really see her in your mind’s eye, how she looks? Details about her face, her clothes?”
Puzzled, Schinkel nodded. “Sure. I can see her just fine, actually -- I can can see her face, but mostly I just imagine -- “
“No, that’s enough. That’s what I was wondering. OK, back to work.” Once again, he grasped Schinkel’s eyelids, held them wide while he brought the melon baller close -- this time actually touching the outer edge of the eye socket with the edge of the utensil before he straightened up again, and lowered it. “You know, I can do this -- I can take your eye, just like it said in Matthew. Heck, I can even take both eyes, if you want me to -- “
Schinkel looked alarmed, started to squirm.
“ -- but I don’t think that’s going to help. Because even after you can’t physically see her anymore, you’re still going to be able to see her in your mind’s eye -- up there,” he said, touching Schinkel’s head; the man flinched at the touch. “And it’s not like I can very well go rooting around there with a melon baller, so you’re going to have the same feelings.”
“So what are you telling me?”
“I’ll do this if you want me to, Paul -- but I think the problem’s not with your eye, it’s with your heart. If you’re going to look at women with lust -- if you’re going to fixate on that feeling, then that’s a heart problem. Sure, you might see someone, a thought might flash through your mind, that’s natural. But focusing on those feelings is the real problem. Because they take you away from thinking about her as a person -- you just think about her for what she could do for your own ends, at that moment. It gets you lost in the ways of this world, Paul -- gratifying yourself, without thinking of others. That’s not what Jesus would want.”
“But it says -- “
“I think Jesus was making a point. It’s hard to make the same point, saying, ‘if your thoughts offend you, pluck them out.’ But it’s what he meant, I’m pretty sure. He knows we’re not angels, Paul -- we’re human beings, and human beings have feelings, and urges, and all those things. What he was saying is that we need to change who we are -- to rise above them -- if we’re going to be a part of God’s Kingdom. To stop putting ourselves first, but put others before us -- and to remember that they’re human beings, just like us.” He lay down the melon baller, put his hand on Schinkel’s shoulder. “We’re all God’s children, Paul. We all deserve respect.”
Schinkel’s face was a curious blend of relief and disappointment -- or, at least, the feeling of being let down after leading up to a big moment. “So -- you don’t think I should do this?”
“I think God prefers his children to go through life intact, if they can. If you want to talk more about how to change your heart -- how to let open yourself up to the grace of God, so he can change your heart -- I’ll be glad to do that.”
Schinkel nodded. “OK...I think that would be good. But, Rev’rend -- since you’re not going to use it, could you put that thing away?” He pointed to the melon baller, lying on the table. “It makes me a little nervous.”
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
Making a Choice
by Frank Ramirez
Psalm 119:1-8
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15).
Nobody knows how many millions were killed in the First World War, but a whole generation of young men were lost in Germany, France, and England. Unlike, however, the Second World War that followed later in the twentieth century, in which mighty forces representing opposing world views clashed, the earlier war seems to have been one into which the western world tripped into, to no good purpose.
Nevertheless, at the time the war was interpreted as being a Great Cause. Many who would not have had to serve hastened to join. Others struggled mightily within their souls over the decision to join or stay aloof from the fighting.
Oddly enough, a poem written to a friend to demonstrate that sometimes we agonize over choices more than we need to, galvanized that soul to make the choice to enlist, and then to die a few weeks after heading to the Front.
The American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) was the author of the poem, and his friend, Englishman Edward Thomas (1878-1917), was the recipient. The two met in London the year before the war began. Almost immediately the two became close companions. At that point neither had achieved fame as a writer.
Frost had only published a few poems in America, and had made a sudden decision to travel with his family across the ocean in an attempt to jump-start his writing career. With the help of his friend Thomas he published a small book of poetry that attracted little attention at the time, but convinced Thomas that his friend was a genius.
Thomas, meanwhile, though much published (having written twenty books in prose, along with over two thousand reviews), thought of himself as a literary hack. He was frustrated and depressed about his career and his life, making his family miserable in the process. At that point Thomas had not written a single poem.
When war broke out his anxiety became even worse. Even though his age meant he need not enlist in the military, he vacillated between a desire to join and a desire to stay at home. Because of the danger of invasion Frost returned to the United States, taking with him one of Edward Thomas' children for safekeeping.
Thomas, meanwhile, because of his inner turmoil, suddenly began to churn out a great deal of poetry, some of which would be published posthumously. It was work that would in time make him quite famous indeed.
In the meantime, understanding that his friend was having great difficulty deciding what he ought to do, Frost sent to him a poem that is now very famous. The year was 1915. The war, originally believed on both sides would be a short one, was turning into a long, drawn-out bloody conflict. The poem was originally titled "Two Roads." It is now known as "The Road Not Taken."
The poem, memorized by generations of school children, begins:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
Frost knew his friend was uncertain what to do in the face of the Great War, and in his mind he thought the poem gently mocked indecision, suggesting that Edwards might be overthinking things, and that the choice might not be as momentous as his friend thought. But, like many who later understood the poem to suggest that if we made the wrong choice we would regret it in later years, the final stanza caused Edward Thomas to believe he had no choice but to enlist in what was turning into a very bloody conflict.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Thomas took the poem seriously and personally. He enlisted almost immediately after receiving the poem. After training, and rising to a rank of second lieutenant, Edwards was sent to the front in 1917. He died scant weeks afterwards.
In his closing words to the people on the verge of crossing over to the Promised Land, Moses tells the people they too are facing a choice -- but he makes certain they understand in no uncertain terms that theirs is not a choice about which hiking trail to take. It is a choice that matters: See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15).
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 12, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
